


Take a Walk on the Wild Side

by Desmondasaurs



Series: Small Mercies [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Career Change, Developing Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Life Continues!, Life in the eighties, M/M, Sickfic, Slice of Life, lifestyle changes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 09:43:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21318118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desmondasaurs/pseuds/Desmondasaurs
Summary: Desk Duty is awful, boring, tedious, and Dobey keeps making him complete reports in under six-hundred words. Starsky is ticking down the days until he's allowed back on the streets. That is, if he can pass the physical endurance tests.
Relationships: Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Series: Small Mercies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536772
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	Take a Walk on the Wild Side

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** January Creeping **

(Mid-December 1979)

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The doctor had warned them that it could happen. Diminished lung capacity, missing kidney, it left a man’s immune system vulnerable. Hutch had expected it, dreaded it with Starsky’s return to work. Even if it was desk duty, it put him in a room with a constant flow of people. Criminals, junkies, you name it. So, on the thirteenth when Starsky woke him up with a nasty sounding cough, Hutch had expected the worst.

How long did it take pneumonia to set in, how long until a simple case of bronchitis became septic? Was it bacterial or viral? Could this be it? Could a little cough be what takes him out?

Hutch’s blood ran cold and he shoved himself up onto his elbows and grabbed Starsky by the shoulders.

“Whutsth’matterwityou!” Starsky shoved him off; “Stop shaking me!” He staggered out of bed, still coughing, and went to the bathroom.

Hutch hovered outside the door. Heard him using the toilet, washing his hands. Nearly knocked him over when the door opened.

“Will you cut it out!” Starsky was rubbing his nose with a wad of tissue.

Vitamins. Hutch darted to the basket of pills in the cabinet over the toaster, gave him a fistful of vitamin capsules, hovered and muttered until he’d swallowed them. “We should call the doctor… Let them know.”

“Why?” Starsky shuffled back to bed and hid himself under the covers.

“Because this could turn into something very serious, very quickly.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t know that!” Hutch pawed through the medicine chest for a thermometer, came back into the bedroom in just his pajama pants and a t-shirt. “Open up.”

Starsky glared at him from under the blankets. Just curled fingers and an evilly squinted blue eye; “Get away from me with that thing if you know what’s good for you.”

“Open your mouth or I’ll put it in the other end,” Hutch brandished the instrument like he would his rigid index finger. Popped it none too gently into his partner’s mouth when it opened in shock and pawed around with his discarded jeans looking for his pocket watch.

“Don’ know why ‘yer so upseth,” Starsky thrust his left arm from beneath the covers and watched the second-hand tick on his watch. “’mfine.”

“You’re coughing. It’s a deep sounding cough, not just the normal ones,” Hutch couldn’t find his watch, instead shook out the brunet’s pants, then went for his jacket. “Where’s your albuterol?”

“Don’needit righ’now.”

“Keep your mouth shut or it won’t be accurate!” Jacket pockets empty, Hutch checked the dresser top. “Did you leave it in the car?”

“Hnn-unn.”

“Then where is it?”

“Hmmnuh,” Starsky motioned vaguely toward his desk.

“What would you do if you did need it? Choke to death while you tried to find it no doubt.”

It was sitting there beside his wallet, pretty as you please. He snatched it up and gave it a shake near his ear, trying to discern how much was left. “We need to get a new one when we talk to the doctor. Should probably keep an extra one in my pocket just in case.”

Starsky was giggling like an idiot, trying not to bite the damned thermometer in half.

“What’s so funny?”

The dark head shook and a finger tapped emphatically at his watch.

“Yeah, you keep laughing. It’ll be _real_ funny when you’re back in the hospital with tubes in your throat because you’ve got double pneumonia fever.”

“’mfine!”

“Shut it!”

Hutch went back to the bathroom and shook some aspirin into his palm, choked them down dry and rubbed his scalp._ Head it off at the pass_, he thought with a sick feeling in his stomach_. Can’t afford a headache with him sick. Fuck, this was a mistake. I should have put my foot down. Told him to wait until after the first of the year to go back. After he’d seen the lung specialist. It was too early. This is bad… This is going to be so bad._ He made it back into the bedroom and found Starsky sitting up against the headboard twitching the thermometer from one side of his mouth to the other like a lollipop stick.

“Will you cut that out!” Hutch snatched it away, “You’re going to break it and get mercury poisoning!” He held it up to the lamp by the bed and squinted at the little line of silver running the length of the instrument. “Dammit,” He started shaking it back down; “I told you. I TOLD you!”

“What? What’s it say?”

“It says you’re fevered.”

“No, it doesn’t!”

“It said ninety-nine point-eight. That’s a fever!”

Starsky rolled his eyes. “Yeah, has nothing to do with me bein’ wrapped up in blankets with the human furnace plastered to my back.”

“Just stay put, I’m calling—”

“I’m FINE. I got a little cough, that’s all!”

“Little cough—there is no such thing as a _little cough_ anymore. Not for you. This—This could be bad. It could be really fucking bad and you wouldn’t know it until it was too late!”

Starsky stared at him with his eyebrows up in shock.

Hutch sighed and held his hand out, palm down, fingers splayed gently, in a sign that he wasn’t necessarily angry. “Just, please, stay there and let me call the doctor.”

Starsky said nothing, didn’t even move.

Hutch left the room and picked up the telephone by the window. His whole body felt tense, no way was he going back to sleep now. His mind was going in circles. Memories blending with fears. Starsky lying on a gurney with tubes running in and out of him. His face so still and lifeless. Hands limp and pale—

_Not again, please, not again._

The doctor wasn’t in his office yet. Hutch slammed the phone down again in irritation, considered packing Starsky up and going to the emergency room, but that would be even worse. Expose him to more germs, more sick people. He rubbed his face, paced for a while, peered into the bedroom and found Starsky asleep again on his belly with a rolled up tissue sticking out of his left nostril.

Cough syrup. He’ll need cough syrup, and something to bring down the fever when it gets higher. Soup from the Jewish deli that he liked so much. Unless Hutch wanted to try and make it again… He’d need garlic… Up his protein, more citrus fruits. Ginger tea with lemon and honey. He hates that stuff.

Hutch sat down on the sofa and scribbled out a list, went through the cabinets to see what food was there. What kind of a collection of vitamins and herbs he’d begun to accumulate again.

It was almost a relief, being able to put his knowledge of vitamins and holistic care to use again. He’d gone through a rough patch the last year and a half, stopped caring about much of anything. Taking care of Starsky, helping him rebuild his strength and do right by his body was a little more of an ego boost than Hutch wanted to admit. And if he’d started taking care of himself a little better too, well, that was just a bonus.

He could make a cough syrup, molasses, grated ginger, lemon juice… It would soothe a sore throat and ease an upset stomach. Milkshakes—throw in some desiccated liver for protein. Disguise the taste and color with chocolate if he had to. Leek soup—Maybe some lentils, he liked lentils. Broths, beets—

“Have you been up all night?”

Hutch turned with a start.

Starsky was standing in the bedroom doorway, scratching fitfully at his head, rumpled and flushed from sleep. He yawned, mouth gaping, and shuffled over to the couch, sat down beside his partner and leaned into his shoulder. “What’s so important you couldn’t come back to bed.”

“Kind of hard to do when you’re doing your starfish impression.”

Starsky hummed, sounded congested and pulled his feet up onto the couch, snuggled down into the cushions. “Sorry.”

“Still feel rotten?”

A shrug, though he didn’t open his eyes, “’feel alright… little achy, but I’m OK.”

“You should go back to bed.”

“Hnnn, we gotta be in at ten… ‘s half past seven now, and I want breakfast.”

Hutch glanced at the clock, muttered a curse and shoved to his feet. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“What about your run?” Starsky flopped over onto the warm spot Hutch had left on the couch.

“We’re not running when you’re sick.”

“I’m fine, Hutch, really—”

“No, you’re not,” Hutch banged a pot around on the stove, “You have germs breeding in your lungs. And around all that scar tissue where you can’t get it out. You’ll have pneumonia in hours if we don’t get it under control now.”

Starsky was quiet, dangerously quiet.

Hutch turned to stare over his shoulder, half expecting Starsky to have got up and gone for the run anyway, because he was stubborn and thought he knew what was best, without taking into account his bad lung.

But Starsky was still there, arms crossed, looking like a simmering teakettle.

Hutch turned back to the stove. Muttered belligerently.

Starsky was quiet the rest of the day. Yes, he made snide comments, and flirted shamelessly at the female officers and clerks, but his heart wasn’t in it. Nobody else may be able to tell, but Hutch could.

Quiet.

Subdued.

He drank the orange juice, took his medicine, swallowed this greasy concoction or another. Didn’t even complain about the cough syrup Hutch had cooked up for him.

And as quiet as he was, Hutch became all the more worried.

Starsky was never quiet unless it was bad. He never gave over like this unless he was really hurting, or really sick. When it was something simple, a cold, or the sniffles, he acted like he was dying. When it was serious, he got quiet and tried to reassure his partner that he was OK.

So, with this history playing over and over in his head, Hutch doubled his efforts. Stayed up late just watching Starsky sleep, bundled down under a mound of blankets with ‘Save the Baby’ smeared on his chest, neck and back. Tucked into one of Hutch’s thick woolen sweaters in an attempt to sweat the germs out.

Every hitch of his breath, every little cough, or sigh or whimper in sleep made Hutch’s blood run cold and he pressed closer, as if his proximity would keep his partner breathing, would somehow keep the infection from spreading.

The little packets of tissues Starsky kept in his pockets started popping up everywhere, and Hutch found himself breaking out in a cold sweat during the night, just listening to his partner breathe.

Was that a snore, or a gasp? Was his breathing labored because he was dreaming, or because he was suffering?

Hutch popped aspirin like candy daily. Couldn’t get comfortable in his chair at work, heart stuttering erratically behind his ribs and choking him. Sending him outside to suck in labored breaths as he tried to calm himself down. He hadn’t had panic attacks like this since he was in recovery after spending days trapped under his car.

He threw a couple extra Saint John’s Wart tablets in with his aspirin.

He couldn’t eat, felt like he could smell the garlic and turmeric he was cooking with, to help boost Starsky’s immune system, clinging to him. Everything smelled funny. Nothing tasted right when he tried to force himself to eat.

His hands shook, his joints ached. His head felt fuzzy and light, barely tethered to his body.

And Starsky kept being quiet, diminished. Accepted everything Hutch pushed at him with barely a word, so, it had to be bad. He had to feel awful.

Four days went by and Hutch could feel his heart beating painfully in his chest, every breath he took ached, he couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t do anything but worry, pull his hair and obsess over the silence from his partner.

_It’s bad._ He kept telling himself, images of Starsky barely clinging to life flashing behind his reddened eyes. _It’s bad and it’s getting worse, nothing’s working!_

“When this shift’s over,” Hutch started as he held the squad room door open, free hand held a few inches behind Starsky’s shoulders, afraid to touch him, “I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re getting worse.”

Starsky looked at him quietly. Took a breath and let it out, nodded.

“Come on, sit down.”

“Just,” Starsky started as he took his seat, turned his head to force Hutch to look at him and bend close, “I don’t wanna stay there… I—” He had a strange look in his eyes, helplessness. “If I have to stay would you at least bring me some pajamas? I can’t stand those smocks with the open back.”

Hutch heard what wasn’t said, the ‘I don’t want to feel like I’m never going to get out of there. I need to have something to remind me there’s more than hospital white in this world.’

Hutch nodded, patted him gently on the shoulder.

“And the sweater? Yanno the one with the cables?” He made a gesture at his chest, over his heart. Hopeful, because it was Hutch’s favorite sweater. A comfort from home and the man he loved.

“Yeah, the sweater.”

Hutch’s hands shook as he poured himself a cup of coffee, threw back a few more aspirin. The coffee tasted awful—worse than usual, the world around him seemed to throb in time with his heart. He took his seat a little too quickly and sloshed coffee over his hand. He barely felt the burn of it, or had time to shake the liquid off the papers he needed to look over before Dobey’s door flew open and the man himself called out gruffly for them.

He’d almost forgotten the low exasperation in Dobey’s voice. The tone more familiar than the words. A dressing down, lack of respect on their parts, this that and the other. He let the world fade out, just nodding along where it was appropriate, humming in approval or disapproval, whichever seemed necessary.

“—And furthermore, I don’t know what’s going on with you two, but whatever it is had better—Hutchinson? Hutch—”

He was swimming, Jesus, he felt like he’d been doused with a bucket of water. His shirt was sticking to him, his hair was wet—sweat dripping into his eyes. His mouth was numb and the sounds coming out of it didn’t seem human.

“Hutch?” There was a hand on his arm, but he didn’t feel it, Starsky’s voice close to his right side. “Hutch, buddy, take it easy. What’s the matter?”

“Hutch?” Dobey’s face came shimmering into view, twice as wide as it should be in high definition full technicolor.

“Easy, Hutch—drink some water—”

He tried for the little paper cup, ended up spilling half of it on his sleeves. The rest came back up onto his shirt and the world started moving at double speed. Nothing made sense. He was on his feet, pacing and pawing at the slick gross mess on his shirt trying to clean it up with some of those little tissues Starsky kept in his pocket. Apologizing, half sobbing, shaking, stumbling.

Oh, God, what was happening! Was he having a heart attack? A stroke like his grandfather had had? One big Ka-POW and everything had gone haywire.

“It’s the gremlins!” Hutch felt himself saying, and all he could see was William Shatner’s face in a panic, pawing at the flight attendants; “There’s something on the wing!”

Why the hell had he let Starsky talk him into that Twilight Zone bullshit that’d been on the late late show? Jesus, he was having a nightmare! Little creepy crawly things alive under his skin and trying to squirm out through his hair follicles. He scratched at them, slid to the floor like a starlet.

Dobey was shouting, Starsky’s face was pale and bent close—

“This isn’t right. Something’s wrong—I feel sick—"

“Just take it easy, everything’s gonna be OK.”

Later, Hutch had a feeling that he’d been fully conscious of every excruciating second of it, but had inexplicably forgotten everything. Like those frustrating moments when you try to remember something, but know you’re going to forget it later. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember what had happened.

He was in the hospital, that was obvious. The world still felt wrong, swirling and out of control like those awful days in Huggy’s upstairs room. Nothing but sickness and the stink of his sweat staining Starsky’s clothes.

At least he wasn’t alone here. Past the weird crinkly film surrounding him Hutch could see Starsky with a paper mask on his face, sitting in a chair.

“Hey, you with me?” Starsky gave his arm a little shake. “Did you hear me?”

“What?” It came out more forceful than he’d intended, a half shout.

Starsky was quiet, indulgent. “I said, the doctor doesn’t want us in the same room.”

“What? Shit—That—What do you mean? How am I—How am I supposed to take care of you—” He tried to sit up, discovered the IV wires in both arms. “Fuck this—what’s going on!”

Starsky’s hands were gentle, coaxing him down like they coaxed him up sometimes when they were alone. Softly, but with great purpose. “Just take it easy for a minute, Hutch. Let’s take it from the top. One more time,” A slow breath. How many times had they gone over this now? How many times had he forgotten?

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” A pat to his arm.

How many times had he apologized already?

“The doctor says you’re gonna be OK. You need rest, fluids, and a whole helluvalot of penicillin.”

“Why?”

Starsky met his eyes, cautious and gentle; “You’ve got pneumonia… Doctor says you worked yourself into the ground these past few months taking care of me. Your blood glucose is way too low, you’re dehydrated, and you’ve got a pretty nasty case of pneumonia.”

“What?”

“You’re sick. Doc wants to keep me for a few days too to make sure I don’t wind up sick as well. But we can’t be in the same room, my lungs can’t take it,” There was a sadness in his eyes, in his voice too. Pain that was soul deep. “You gotta calm down and let the nurses take care of you.”

“You can’t stay?”

“I can’t stay. If I wind up more sick than I am already It could be bad,” He didn’t elaborate. “So, you’ve gotta relax and let the nurses work on you. I’m fine. I’m just down the hall—” His face pinched under the paper mask. “I’d be here if I could, you know that, right? I’d—I’d be right there under that tent with you! But, I can’t. My—I’m not healed enough to handle getting pneumonia. So, I’ve gotta…” The words trailed off and he gripped Hutch’s arm and hand so tight it was painful.

It was a good pain, even if it ripped Hutch up inside.

“It’s OK,” Hutch squeezed back. “It’s OK.”

“You were yelling… You were— still are, delirious… But, I can’t stay much longer. The nurse is gonna get in trouble if I get caught in here… So, you need to calm down. Don’t make them sedate you. I—It’d kill me if they had to, just because I couldn’t be here. Hell, I don’t care about the risk, but you will. You’ll be angry with me when you find out about this, but I couldn’t do nothing. So—so, you gotta remember this time, OK? I’m alright. I’m just down the hall, everything is gonna be OK.”

“Stars?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re wearin my sweater.”

“That’s what you notice? You’re half dead in the hospital and all you care about is your sweater?”

He smiled, felt loopy and exhausted and relished in the pressure of Starsky’s hand in his own.

The brunet sighed, bowed his head, “Just remember, OK? Remember so I don’t have to keep doing this and hearing you call for me when I can’t be here.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me you’ll remember this time?”

“I promise… I promise.”

He did remember, vaguely. Didn’t shout for his partner again. Subsisted on the little whispered encouragements his addled mind told him could have been dreams. Or the relayed messages from Dobey.

“Exhaustion,” Dobey said. “The doctors said you’d worked yourself half to death. You were going into shock right there in my office—we could have lost you!” He shook his head, “All this time you’ve been focused on Dave and you didn’t once stop to think that you needed to take care of yourself?”

He spent four days in an oxygen tent, plus the two he couldn’t remember. Another three with a plastic mask or cannula before they let Starsky in to see him officially.

Starsky had been much better off. The homemade cough syrup and remedies had worked and staved off the worst of the flu, but he’d still been sick. Spent three days resting and focusing on fluids and trying not to worry too much about Hutch, just a few doors away.

His first official visit was standing by the door wearing a paper mask the day he was released. Not allowed to touch, and all under the guise that he would go home and rest for another five days. Which, needless to say, didn’t happen. Huggy made him stay home the first day, but the second relented and brought Starsky in.

He hated those paper masks. Hated them. Hated how pale and wasted Hutch looked. How little he moved or spoke, body too exhausted from illness to keep up a conversation.

It was a full seven days since Hutch’s collapse before the blonde was able to carry on a conversation with his partner, and even then that damned mask was in the way.

“I get what you were tryin’ to do,” Starsky said softly. Without Huggy or a nurse there to see, he had pressed in close and twined his fingers with his partner’s. Held on as if he were afraid of letting go. “I can’t get sick like that… Not now—maybe not ever again. You were tryin’ to protect me from it. But you gotta understand something, if you aren’t taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of me, not the way you want to. And I can’t take care of you the way I want to if I’m not healthy enough to do it,” He pressed his face into Hutch’s shoulder, tried to ignore the scent of astringent and fading illness; “So, we need to make a deal. Here and now. If we want this to work, then we take better care of ourselves, because I don’t know what I’d do without you… so if that means I choke down one of your stupid potions every morning to stay healthy, I’ll do it. But that means you have to stop forgetting to eat, and you need to talk to someone—You—Hutch, the things you were sayin’ when you were out of it.”

Hutch felt his breath hitch and he looked away, he had a feeling he knew what those things were and he’d never wanted Starsky to hear them.

“Doctor Branburg… the shrink the department makes me talk to… He-uh—He wants to put me on medication. Says it’ll help with the nightmares and stuff.”

Starsky hadn’t talked much about his appointments with Doctor Branburg, or the therapist. Head Shrinkers, as he’d referred to them as before. He’d always just seemed to shrug off their words and move on as he usually did. But this was different.

“Maybe he’s right… Maybe—Maybe if it works for me it’d work for you too.”

Hutch sighed, let his eyes fall closed. “Starsk—”

“Just hear me out—”

“Starsky, I started taking Valium shortly after Vanessa was killed.”

He was quiet, staring.

“Phyllis, one of the station therapists suggested it.”

“Does it work?”

Hutch gave him a long, deep look. 

“Think it’d help me?”

“I don’t think anything’d help you, mutton head.”

A sad grin, but no reply. Starsky’s eyes were shiny—too shiny, too worried.

Hutch sighed, squeezed the hand in his; “It helps some… But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes the nightmares come anyway… Or the thoughts.”

Starsky swiped at his eyes quickly, tried to appear stoic and half failed. “I think about it sometimes… The—uh—” He cleared his throat, “—The shooting… I—I remember parts of it, but not all of it. And some things I remember I think my brain made up just to scare me.”

Hutch squeezed tighter.

“The things you were sayin…” He looked genuinely frightened.

“Stars—”

“You gotta promise me… promise me you won’t do it. I—I can’t think—I can’t deal with the idea that you’d—”

“It’s OK.”

“It’s not OK though… It’s not OK at all,” He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t seem angry, just afraid. Afraid like Hutch hadn’t ever seen him before. “You kept reachin’ for your gun, Hutch—You—you were gonna do it, right there.”

“I was delirious.”

“Yeah, but the thoughts are there, even now, aren’t they?”

He couldn’t say no. They’d been there for a while.

“Do you wanna quit? You wanna stop? We’ll stop. Right now. I don’t—”

“I don’t want to quit. Look at you—Stars, you’re so close. We can’t quit now. Not now. We’re so close,” He squeezed the hand in his so tight his fingers cramped, but Starsky’s gaze didn’t waver, didn’t change.

“It doesn’t mean anything if you’re not there with me… You know that, right? It’s me and you. That’s what matters to me. Not some job, or—or anything else. Just you.”

Hutch felt his throat tighten, words wouldn’t come.

“I can’t lose you… I need you so much it scares the hell outta me.”

Hutch knew that feeling. Had tasted the fear and hopelessness of it not to very long ago. He somehow found the strength to hold on tighter. “I’m not going anywhere… I’ll talk to someone. Just not here, they’ll—they’ll put me in a padded room or something. Ship me of to Cabrillo.”

Starsky didn’t laugh.

“Starsky, it was just the sickness talking—”

Starsky exhaled and his shoulders sagged. He wiped fitfully at his eyes with the heel of his palm, took a few clogged sounding breaths and nodded.

Hutch drifted off for a while, woke to a note folded on his chest.

_“You snore and keep me awake… But I can’t sleep without you.”_

He felt tears building in his sinuses and pressed the note to his face, fighting them back.

_“—I love you. I don’t care if you’re gassy or whatever the hell it is. We need to take care of ourselves right from now on. I’m not spending the next hundred and fifteen years alone, and you just gotta live with that.”_

He picked up the phone and dialed out to Starsky’s, waited for the answer and didn’t even try to hide the hitch in his voice. “I can live with that.”

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